Breaking points are many. They’re points in the road where the great mass of humanity says “Enough”; things as they were are no longer good enough, no longer just enough, no longer decent—human—enough. A point of disgust is reached, where what went before will no longer suffice. Where, indeed, what went before was exactly the problem. Where what went before was a Gordian knot of injustice, unfairness, veritable evil.

We have reached such a point.

The election of a black president, buoyed by a coalition which didn’t conform to the lineaments of the previous holders of power, have made that old, decrepit, dying coalition erupt in one last blast of fury.

We saw it in Texas, in Ohio, in North Carolina, where legislatures have made it known that women are to be kept down, subservient, subject to the will of their betters.

We saw it in the halls of Congress, where the Republican House doesn’t pretend to care about immigrants, but is doing everything it can to stanch the coming tide, hoping that if it engages in one more bit of obstruction their power will be secure. But the future that is coming is as sure as that tide, and the leaders of that House haven’t the wisdom of King Canute, who displayed before his court that he was merely human, and had no power over nature, or the forces of history.

And we saw it, most heartbreakingly, in the verdict which decreed that one could shoot an unarmed black teenager in the street as nothing more than an animal, less than one, and walk away, freedom intact, rights preserved. (We have to ask how free Mr. Zimmerman will be; if he has any shred of humanity, his remaining life will be one of anguish and regret. But at the moment, I’m not feeling so charitable.)

First, a big shoutout to Chips for allowing the lunatics to take over the asylum. Hopefully we won’t all regret it.

So, for my first post here, an essay, because it’s me.

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The world heaved a huge sigh of relief on November 6, 2012, when the results came in and Barack Obama was confirmed in re-election.

Many people worked long hours, gave money they may not have really had, and ensured that President Obama secured a second term. The alternative was too ghastly to comprehend.

And many of those same people, after the election, assumed that, well, that was done, and we could just coast into four years of amity and progress. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As we have seen since the polls closed in November, this version of the Republican Party, dying as it is, is not going to go down without inflicting more damage. From immediately abusing the filibuster “reform” agreed to between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, to vowing to hold the country hostage come the next debt ceiling vote, the GOP is making it patently clear that it didn’t learn a single thing from the election. Because the Republicans were returned to the House in the majority, they think that at least part of the country agrees with their policy. Of course, the thing is that the GOP lost the House popular vote, and held on by the skin of their teeth only due to aggressive gerrymandering resulting from its local victories in 2010.

First Lady Michelle Obama at the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots campaign, which collects toys for needy children, at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, December 11

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Greg Sargent: Until today, it was not certain whether Republicans would stage another showdown over the debt ceiling. They were said to be thinking about it, but reports carefully noted no decision had been made. However, Mitch McConnell today publicly confirmed that it’s on.

….. this is not an explicit declaration that Republicans will refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless they get the spending cuts they want. But it is certainly a threat to do this.

Pay close attention to how this is covered …. raising the debt ceiling is not merely giving Democrats something they want. It is averting a threat to the economy and to the whole country. Top Republicans have admitted this….

Quote of the day – Stephen Colbert: “My network contract prohibits me from taking on another full-time job. So the Senate would be perfect.”

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Steve Benen: When it comes to voter-suppression techniques, Republicans generally maintain a certain pretense, at least in public. They argue that measures such as voter-ID laws aren’t about blocking Americans’ access to their own elections, but rather, about preventing imaginary fraud. The defense isn’t compelling, but GOP officials generally repeat it with a straight face.

Once in a great while, however, a Republican will slip and tell the truth…..

Marine One lands at the White House as President Barack Obama returns from a day trip to Michigan, Dec 10

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Today:

9:45: The President and Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing

1:00: Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney

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NYT: The decline of the middle class in this country has paralleled that of the labor movement, which has been battered by the relentless efforts of business groups and Republicans to drive down wages, boost corporate profits and inflate executive salaries and bonuses. Now that campaign is on the verge of a devastating victory in Michigan, home of the modern labor movement, which could transform the state’s economy for the worse.

On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled Legislature is expected to pass a law that would allow workers to avoid paying dues to a union that represents their shop. Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, has reversed an earlier position and said he would sign the law….

….. As President Obama said on Monday, “These so-called ‘right-to-work’ laws, they don’t have to do with economics, they have everything to do with politics. What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.”

Mr. Snyder’s turnabout shocked workers in his state, and Democratic officials have spent the last few days urging him to reconsider and prevent a needless drive to the bottom. By withholding his signature, he can ensure that Michigan remains both the birthplace and the economic foundation of middle-class security.

Greg Sargent: If anyone had doubts that President Obama would speak out against Michigan’s new “right to work” initiative, he set them to rest during an event in that state ….

…. [he] hit all the right notes. He pointed out that “right to work” laws are not about boosting the economy, but about crippling the political opposition; that they are not about freedom, but about weakening workers’ ability to organize for better pay; that unions have long played a critical role in providing a path to the middle class; and that investing in a trained, well represented work force is the way to produce a broadly shared prosperity – rather than a “race to the bottom” – that is better for the country as a whole….

Market Watch: Some bad news for Republicans trying to hold back tax increases on the wealthy as part of a fiscal cliff deal: A Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll finds that 60% of likely American voters favor raising taxes on households making more than $250,000 a year.

That support dovetails neatly with President Barack Obama’s position – a stance that some Republicans are grudgingly coming around to….

The poll found that only 38% believe the Republicans’ argument that raising taxes on households earning more than $250,000 would hurt the economy, whereas 58% don’t buy it…..

June 11, 2011: “The top photograph shows the President having a water gun fight with his daughter Sasha on her birthday weekend at Camp David. Unbeknownst to me, David Lienemann captured a similar photo of the Vice President on the very same day.” (Official White House Photos by Pete Souza and David Lienemann)

TPM: A lesser-known but important provision in “Obamacare” that regulates how health insurance companies spend their money is yielding benefits for consumers, a new study finds.

By this August, insurers are projected to send consumers a total of $1.3 billion in rebates, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis released Thursday – $541 million to large employers, $377 million to small businesses and $426 million to people with their own insurance plans.

The rebates are the result of a rule in the Affordable Care Act that requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 percent or 85 percent of premium earnings on health care – as opposed to marketing and administrative activities – or otherwise provide rebates to their consumers.

Steve Benen: Joe Weisenthal published a pretty remarkable chart today noting economic growth in the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe over the last nine years….

…. Once President Obama took office and the Recovery Act/stimulus began putting capital back into the economy, the U.S. economy began growing again. In the U.K., the economy started to improve, right up until British officials began implementing an austerity agenda – at which point the national economy stagnated and slipped back into a recession.

Obama rejected austerity, and as a result, American growth, while fragile and insufficient, is easily outpacing Europe’s and UK’s, where austerity measures have ruled the day.

….When David Cameron’s austerity policies began, Republicans were not only certain they would work, they pleaded with American policymakers to follow the Tories’ lead …. The remarkable thing is, Republicans aren’t the least bit chastened by the track record of failure.

ThinkProgress: …. The Romney campaign organized a conference call today with three of Romney’s foreign policy advisers to push back (against VP Biden’s foreign policy speech). During the call, Romney adviser Ambassador Pierre Prosper attacked President Obama for dealing with Russia, albeit using geographical terms from the Cold War era:

PROSPER: ….. The United States abandoned its missile defense sites in Poland and Czechoslovakia….

Aside from the fact that “Czechoslovakia” broke up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia nearly 20 years ago, the Obama administration never “abandoned” missile defense sites because they were never there to begin with….

Michael Tomasky: It seems clear that the main issue Mitt Romney is going to use to try to reestablish himself as a moderate is immigration …. Can Romney, who staked out an immigration position during the primaries that left him sounding like Pat Buchanan, really pull this off? My bet: He’ll be smooth, he’ll do almost everything right, he’ll say all the right things — and he’ll end up with something very much like the 31 percent of the Latino vote John McCain got, maybe two or three points more, tops. The reason is simple: Romney, like his party, is just too white.

…. There is no signal, at least yet, that Rubio would make a whit of difference. Last weekend, a poll came out in which 1,000-plus Latinos were asked about Obama-Biden matchups against Romney-Rubio, and Romney paired with various other Hispanic Republicans ….. in Florida, Obama did better among Latinos against Romney with Rubio on the ticket, suggesting that maybe to know him isn’t to love him.

NYT: The group Americans for Prosperity just went up with a $6.1 million ad buy in swing states that accuses the Obama administration of squandering American taxpayer dollars on green energy projects, asserting that some of the money actually went to foreign entities….

In making the general assertion that “billions of taxpayer dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign countries,” the ad cites as evidence $1.2 billion that went “to a solar company that’s building a plant in Mexico.” In fact, the company involved in the plant, SunPower, said that the $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee was for its solar ranch in California….

The ad also says that the Obama administration sent “half a billion to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs in Finland.” …. Loans under the agency’s alternative vehicle program went to Fisker Automotive, an American electric car company based in California that has facilities in Finland, as well as China and Germany. The agency provided $169 million for engineering and tooling work, all carried out in the United States….